For any business, developing an online voice is an important mission. With half the world online, it is essential to continuously generate content and engage with your target market to ultimately help your brand flourish.
You may already post content in the form of social network status updates, blogs, email newsletters – the list is endless. But, establishing a prominent online community can prove to be the real trick to both improving and boosting your brand presence; this is because setting up a strong online community brings a gift that keeps on giving: user-generated content.
Whilst it is still important to have skilled writers, marketers and social media experts – there is no match for a team of online followers. Fans of your work are best suited to illustrate the quality of your brand. This is why it is crucial to have strong relationships with your affiliates, suppliers and vendors as well as clients.
To form a successful community base, it is useful to provide constant tips and advice to followers as well as directly engaging with them. More important than this though, is encouraging customers to answer the questions of one another. Achieve this, and you will have a growing, interactive base of knowledge, used and maintained by your fans and facilitated by your company.
So if you feel that you have a solid online community that would be willing to speak about your services, then it is as simple as asking them!
This can be achieved in many ways. There are obvious methods such as customer surveys which can ask clients questions such as describing their experience with your business, or rating a product or service on a scale of 1-10.
The process can be automated, making it a simple yet effective way to gain customer testimonials and crucial feedback.
Solely asking customers to rate their experience in either a testimonial or as part of an interview can be even better as there is so much more detail to take from; however, clients may be less likely to take the time to do so.
Interviews can be done in person if your business has a physical presence, but can also be done on the phone, or even by webcam. The latter two can once again be automated if your company uses recording lines or video capture tools to record customer testimonials.
So when your company is providing a respectable service, then don’t delay in asking your customers to speak up!
If you like any advice on online marketing or on building your brand presence, then why not give us a call today on 0207 226 0099, contact us to find out more or take a look at our work.